The living in accordance with such creeds will not insure greatness or distinguished reputation, because after all our efforts, no one can be sure of worldly and external success. Events which it was impossible to provide for, or even to foresee, will often confound the best preparations of humanity, because the providence of God overrules all the events of life, according to the eternal dictates of infinite wisdom and mercy,--a wisdom that knows when it is best for us to succeed and when to fail in our wishes and endeavors, and a mercy which, looking to our eternal welfare, sometimes makes us sorrowful here that we may the more rejoice hereafter.
Perhaps the cause which most frequently prevents the adoption of a creed is the failing to recognize the seriousness of life in this world. Few persons can be found so senseless or so reckless as not to recognize the seriousness of death. Probably few could look upon the solemn stillness of the lifeless human countenance without a feeling of awe at the thought that ere long their day too must come when the beating of the busy heart shall cease, and the now quick blood shall stay its course,--when the hand shall lose its cunning and the brain its power. Such impressions are too often transitory, passing away with the object that awoke them, because persons do not stop to consider why it is that solemnity and awe pervade the presence of death. If they did, they would feel that this solemnity was reflected upon life, and life would became to them serious as death. Both would be serious, but neither sorrowful; for then death would lose its terror and would be looked forward to simply as the beginning of eternal life. The solemnity of life lies in the fact that it is a preparation for eternity; and the solemnity of death in the fact that the preparation is over and the eternity begun. In all this there is no cause of sadness, but infinite cause for thoughtful seriousness.
When the true solemnity of life is comprehended, and the Character is moulded in accordance with the ideas that in consequence possess the soul, a growth of the whole nature is induced that prevents all the repulsive characteristics of old age. Too often old age is utterly disagreeable through the indulgence of ill-temper, fretfulness, and selfish indifference to the wishes and pleasures of the young. Such traits of Character could never possess us if the true import of life were comprehended, and the Character formed in harmony with its teachings. A Character that grows in grace daily must become more and more beautiful and attractive with advancing years. Each day, as it finds it better fitted for heaven, must find it less sullied by the imperfections of earth.